Professor Franco Cotana was born in Marsciano (Perugia) in 1957. He is Full Professor of Applied Physics at University of Perugia since 2001. During his career he covered many key responsible positions such as Member of the Board of Directors of University of Perugia (since 2014), and the Direction of CIRIAF (Interuniversity Research Centre on Pollution and Environment "Mauro Felli") at the University of Perugia, from June 2013 to April 2015; he is also the founder of the CRB (National Biomass Research Centre).
Currently he is the President and Coordinator of the PhD Course in Energy and Sustainable Development and given his experience in the bio-energy field, he is the Italian representative at Bruxelles in SET PLAN (Strategic Energy Technology Planning) EIBI (European Industrial Bioenergy Initiative). He is Member of the NYSA New York Science Academy since 2010 and Member of the CNR (National Research Council) technical Committee since 2016.
Prof. Cotana is author and co-author of more than 200 original research papers and he is the scientific coordinator of more than 50 research projects, such as the Impath-TES, Zero Plus and Heracles projects, funded by the EC under the H2020 program.
Presentation Abstract
Title:Implementation of circular economy and physical internet for the cities of tomorrow - Sviluppo dell'economia circolare e del "physical internet" nelle città del futuro.
CIRIAF is an interuniversity Research Center working since 1997 in the major environmental and energy topics such as sustainable transport, energy efficiency and renewable energies, also considering their impacts on human health, ensuring an interdisciplinary approach. In this context the cities of the future are considered as interesting laboratories in order to implement the new circular economy approach and the physical internet strategy allowing the smart urban development.
These objectives are completely in agreement with two recent important documents i.e. (i) the Accordo di Parigi sul Clima (2015) and (ii) the Laudato Si' Enciclica. To this aim, the presented contribution is a critical summary of some new technologies, also having been patented, that can be applied to the smart cities of tomorrow. The first technology is the Pip§net system, that is the physical internet strategy, allowing to obtain a smarter transport system for goods, substituting the road transport vehicles. The second solution is the Smart Energy Tower, that is a new integrated system for the production of renewable energies as a district pole. The Smart Energy Tower can contribute to the energy efficiency, to the sustainability of the new city and to the optimization of urban waste treatment cycle.
Moreover, since the cities of the future have to take care of cultural heritage and of the landscape preservation, some example of these best practices will been shown, such as the case study of the Rocca di Sant'Apollinare (located in Marsciano - Perugia), that is a smart sustainable energy village, hosting the first LEED HB certified in the world.
